On my way out of town I decided to stop and snap a pix of one of the three golf courses in this little community I call home. Yes, folks, that is the "clubhouse" of this public golf course. I have no idea who maintains this little piece of green -- since it is out of City limits -- but I do see people playing there whenever i pass by...weather permitting. I am not sure if it is just a driving range or a 9-hole course or something in between. What I do know is that Beatrix, the wonder Cairn, has many golf balls from what I am sure are disheartened players. You see the Beck Farm we frequently visit is located just across the highway and without missing a day there are new golf balls to be found in the fenced portion of their property. I learned to play the game way back when -- in my first years at Cal State Long Beach physical education courses were still a requirement. Yes...students were actually required to stay in shape. I figured that golf would be the easiest since it required no special clothing and the minimum of equipment that I could easily carry, so it was my choice for several years. While I never gained any real skill at the game, I did, over time, learn to appreciate it for being much more than what it seems to the innocent onlooker. Golf is a game of consistency -- therefore it is my feeling that unless you play every single day, it is really hard to excel at it. That being said what I did love about the game was the camaraderie of the group I was playing with. In those days we did a lot of hitting the ball and walking (yes, we walked...no carts were provided...so we covered the course the old fashioned way...with our feet) which left us a lot of time to just talk about life in general. Those early years came and went in a blink; but the good times associated with golf never left my memory. Over the years, I dated many a man who fancied himself the golf expert -- hey, now that I think about it, one was a golf pro at a beach side golf course, wonder what happened to him? I have memories of riding along -- not really playing -- at some beautiful courses, usually in the early morning hours, in the desert of SoCal and the beaches of NoCal (well, more central than north). It seemed that no matter where I was at the moment, there was a place to play golf -- case in point, this tiny little golf course. As I went on my way to Dundee, I wondered if people around the world really play for the "score" or if they play for the friendship that comes out of sharing a game together? I'm going to have to ask my brother-in-law who, as far as I know, still gets up at 4:00 every Thursday morning to meet his friends on a local golf course for a friendly game. Yes, they do wear hats with "headlights" on them -- and yes, they are all crazy, but wouldn't miss a game. I have to believe it is for more than just hitting a ball and driving around in a golf cart...don't you think?
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